May Women Serve as Mohalot?Responsa in a Moment: Volume 3, Issue No. 9, June 2009

I) The Biblical Period (Brief references below refer to the Bibliography which follows).Circumcision is one of the first mitzvot mentioned in the Torah (Genesis, Chapter 17). Interestingly enough, the second mention of this mitzvah (Exodus 4:24-26) relates how Tzipporah circumcised her son in the encampment on the road from Midyan to Egypt:

At a night encampment on the way, the Lord encountered him and sought to kill him. So Tzipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched his legs with it, saying, “You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!” And when the Lord let him alone, she added, “A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision.”

The Sages viewed Tzipporah’s act with favor. In the midrash (Shmot Rabbah 5:8, ed. Shinan pp. 157-158) Tzipporah says: “for behold I have performed the mitzvah“. One could derive from this biblical story that women may always perform a britor that a woman can do so b’di’avad, after the fact, when there is no choice, e.g. in order to save Moshe’s life.

II) The Second Temple PeriodThe Book of Maccabees contains a story about women being killed for circumcising their sons. II Maccabees 6:12 relates that two women were murdered by the Greeks-Syrians “for circumcising their sons”. The parallel verse in I Maccabees 1:60-61 says that the women “who circumcised their sons” were murdered “along with those who circumcised them”. This makes it sound like the women told others to circumcise their children. Finally, the Aramaic work Megillat Antiochus, which seems to have been written in Eretz Yisrael sometime between the 2nd-5th centuries, says (v. 35-36) that a woman “circumcised her son on the eighth day” and then jumped from the city wall together with her baby and they both died (See Ziv, p. 40 and notes 5-7). Thus, two out of these three sources relate that women circumcised their sons during the Maccabean revolt against the Greek-Syrians. This might indicate that women may perform a britmilahor this might indicate that women performed circumcision only in times of persecution.

III) The Rabbinic Period1) A baraita which appears in Tosefta Shabbat (6:8, ed. Lieberman, p. 70 and parallel sources) (The parallel sources are Shabbat 134a; Hullin 47b; Yerushalmi Yevamot Chapter 6, fol. 7d and cf. Shir Hashirim Rabbah 7:3 quoted by Ziv, pp. 41-42). talks about a woman who gave birth to male children and they were circumcised and died. “She circumcised one and he died, she circumcised the second and he died” etc. “A story is told of four sisters in Tzippori – the first one circumcised and he died, the second [sister] circumcised and he died, the third [sister] circumcised and he died” etc. The third story is told by the tanna Rabbi Nathan about when he was in Cappadocia (Turkey). “[She] circumcised the first son and he died, the second one and he died” etc.

In all of these cases, it sounds like the mother herself performed the circumcision. Furthermore, these are all cases of l’khathila, before the fact, and not b’diavad, after the fact, as might have been the case in Exodus or in Maccabees.

2) The primary Talmudic source about women serving as mohalotis found in Avodah Zarah 27a:

It has been stated: Whence could it be deduced that circumcision performed by a non-Jew is invalid? Daru b. Papa said in the name of Rav: [From the words,] “And as for thee, thou shall keep my covenant” [Genesis 17:9]; while R. Johanan [deduces it from the words] “himol yimol” [ibid. v. 13 as if it says hamol yimol] – “he who is circumcised shall circumcise”. What is the difference between them?

We must therefore say that the case wherein they differ is that of a woman. According to the one who relies on “Thou shall keep my covenant” [i.e. Rav], the qualification is not there, since a woman cannot be circumcised, while according to the one who relies on “he who is circumcised shall circumcise” [i.e. Rabbi Yohanan], the qualification is there, for a woman is like one who is circumcised. But does anyone hold that a woman is not [qualified to perform circumcision]? Does not scripture say, “So Tzipporah took a flint” [Exodus 4:25]? Read it as if it says “she caused to be taken”. But it also says “And [she] cut off”? Read it as if it says “and she caused it to be cut off”, by asking a man to do it. Or you may say it means that she only began and Moses came and completed it.

Thus, Rav, a first generation Babylonian Amora, would forbid women to perform a brit milah while Rabbi Yohanan, a second generation Israeli Amora, would allow women to perform a brit milah.

Most of those who permit a woman to perform a brit milah base themselves on the well-known Talmudic principle (Beitzah 4a) that when Rav and Rabbi Yohanan disagree, the halakhah follows Rabbi Yonanan. Some also rely on the biblical precedent of Tzipporah.

One of the few sources which prohibits women from performing a britmilah (Tosafot to Avodah Zarah 27a s.v. ishah) says that Rav is correct because his verse is favored by the tanna Rabbi Judah the Prince earlier in the sugya when he forbids non-Jews from performing milah.

IV) Medieval AuthoritiesIn any case, Yaakov Spiegel and Yossi Ziv have examined many medieval codes, midrashim and piyutim written between the 8th-16thcenturies and divided them into three groups (Spiegel, pp. 150-154; Ziv, pp. 43-46. I have not repeated the exact references which can be found in their articles in the footnotes). We have added a few additional authorities:

V) Why did the strict approach prevail?If women in the bible, second temple period and tannaitic period performed brit milah; and if R. Yohanan allowed it and halakhah normally follows R. Yohanan; and if so many medieval halakhic authorities allowed this before or after the fact — then why do we not hear about women actually performing britmilah in the medieval period?

Yossi Ziv (pp. 46-49) tried to clear up the mystery by examining the customs of Ethiopian Jewry which he culled from 38 interviews conducted in Israel in the years 1999-2003. After an Ethiopian Jewish woman gives birth, she is ritually impure for 40 days for a son and for 80 days for a daughter. She leaves her home with the baby and lives outside the village in “a house of a woman in confinement”. Female relatives go with her to help her. Since she and her nursing baby are still impure on the eighth day, she or one of the other women perform the brit milah. It is never done by a man, because he would become ritually impure by touching the baby. On the 40th day for a boy or the 80th day for a girl, the mother and baby immerse in a river and become pure.

Ziv surmises that the Ethiopians preserved the original Palestinian customs of ritual purity, as reflected in the ruling of Rabbi Yohanan, that women may perform milah. In Babylon, the laws of purity had already disappeared, hence Rav ruled that a woman may not perform brit milah.

This is an interesting theory, but it does not hold up to careful scrutiny:
1) It is impossible to determine the origin of Ethiopian Jews, but many scholars agree that they were Ethiopians of Agau origin who adopted an Israelite identity at some point. Most of their beliefs and practices have parallels in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. They usually follow Biblical or Apocryphal literature as opposed to Talmudic or medieval Jewish custom (See Steven Kaplan in Michael Corinaldi, Jewish Identity: The Case of Ethiopian Jewry, Jerusalem, 1998, pp. 152-160).

2) There is no hint in Avodah Zarah 27a that there is a connection between the laws of purity and women performing britmilah. Indeed, Rav and R. Yohanan were actually discussing whether anon-Jew can perform brit milah; it is the stam hatalmud or editor of the Talmud who transfers their argument to women and brit milah.

3) If the Ethiopian custom was related to R. Yohanan, the latter would have required women to perform britmilah, not allowed it.

e) there is no Talmudic basis for permitting this only b’di’avad, after the fact, and the ultimate authority in Jewish law is the Babylonian Talmud (See what I wrote in my book Ma’amad Ha’ishah Bahalakhah(above, note 6), pp. 62-64. Some of the Rishonim say that the idea of b’di’avad is based on the story of Tzipporah – but the Talmud makes no such claim).